Long-Term Goal Review: Am I On Target?

Posted Oct 18 2008 4:08pm

And now to review my long-term goals.....

Here are the original long-term goals I stated at the outset of my fitness/nutrition journal:

(1) Lose 25 pounds in the next 4-6 months (by Valentine's Day at the latest). (2) Complete the CT5K program in 9 weeks/2 months (by September 21st). (3) Follow the Abs Diet Plan for 6 weeks (concurrent with exercise plan). (4) Lift free-weights once a week, beginning the week of July 22.

Since I've already achieved Goal #2, & it's actually really more of a short term goal, I'm going to revise my long-term goals to be the following:

(1) Lose 25 pounds in the next 4-6 months (by Valentine's Day at the latest). (2) Run & successfully complete my first marathon. (3) Follow the Abs Diet Plan until I lose all of the weight, then develop a maintenance plan, based on the principles of the Abs Diet Plan & the Canyon Ranch meal plan. (4) Weight train regularly, starting with once a week & building from there. Specifically: Over the next year to two years, develop enough upper body muscle strength to be able to do 50 pushups & bench-press my body weight. Also, in this same time frame, be able to do 500 situps, & 100 leg lifts per leg.

(1) Lose 25 pounds in the next 4-6 months (by Valentine's Day at the latest). Goal Assessment:I'm almost there!!!!!Since starting my running program on July 21st,I've already lost 22.4 lbs. & it's only 12/12/07, so not only have I almost achieved this goal, but I'm actually ahead of schedule. Only 2.6 more pounds to go to achieve this goal. That makes a gal feel pretty good, eh!?! Reassessment Plan of Action: Keep doing what I'm already doing! I think I can lose a total of 30 lbs. by the end of February or early March. By May, I hope to lose another 5 lbs. after that, which'd take me to an extremely ideal weight for race training & (hopefully!) a fantastic overall body fat percentage. So, that'll be the new long-term goal. ;-) So, make that 35 lbs. total by May 2008 & a range of 14-18% body fat by this time next year (i.e., mid-December 2008). I think that's extremely doable!

(2) Run & successfully complete my very first marathon by December 2009.Goal Assessment: Still working on building my mileage, so hopefully by May 2008, I will be running half-marathon distances, & can move on from there...... Reassessment Plan of Action: N/A.

(3)Follow the Abs Diet Plan until I lose all of the weight, then develop a maintenance plan, based on the principles of the Abs Diet Plan & the Canyon Ranch meal plan. Goal Assessment: Doing fairly well with following the Abs Diet, but it's more of a loose interpretation than an exact science, when it comes to meal-planning. ;-) Doing well with eating reasonable portion sizes & healthy foods. Reassessment Plan of Action: I'm following the basic tenets of the Abs Diet in terms of portion sizes, nutrition & food types, etc., but need to get back to eating small meals & snacks again, & making sure that I follow the "meal, snack, meal, snack, meal, snack" structure of the plan.

(4)Weight train regularly, starting with once a week & building from there. Specifically: Over the next year to two years, develop enough upper body muscle strength to be able to do 50 pushups & bench-press my body weight. Also, in this same time frame, be able to do 500 situps, & 100 leg lifts per leg.Goal Assessment:Over the past several months, my strength-training workouts have been spotty at best, but overall, I'mdoing better than before at increasing the number of times I lift per month. Still, not so great overall. ;-)Reassessment Plan of Action: Just keep doing strength workouts on the same day at one of my weekly runs, which helps to reinforce the pattern of action. First, work on building the pattern of strength-training into my schedule, then worry about increasing weight increments! ;-)